Southern California -- this just in

Parents of woman killed by ex-LAPD cop Stephanie Lazarus can't sue

February 25, 2013 | 3:10
pm

The California Supreme Court has declined to
rule on whether the parents of a woman murdered by a Los Angeles police officer
should be allowed to sue the LAPD.

The justices' decision last week upholds a lower
court's ruling that Nels and Loretta Rasmussen waited too long to act and
effectively ends the couple's attempt to force police officials to confront
questions about the bungled investigation into their daughter's 1986 killing.

Sherri
Rasmussen was badly beaten and then shot to death in the Van Nuys townhouse she
shared with her husband.

At the time of
her killing, Rasmussen's parents and husband gave detectives reason to
investigate the possibility that Stephanie Lazarus, a young LAPD officer, was
responsible. Lazarus, they reported, had confronted and threatened Rasmussen
before her death.

But Lazarus
was not questioned nor considered a suspect. Instead, the lead detective in the
case pursued a theory that Rasmussen had been killed by robbers.

In 2009, cold
case detectives arrested Lazarus, who was by then a detective, after DNA tests
linked her to the crime. She was convicted last year and sentenced to 27 years
to life in prison.

Rasmussen's
parents filed a lawsuit in 2010 that argued, in part, the LAPD should be held
responsible for failing to consider Lazarus a suspect.

A judge
knocked down the claim, ruling that legal time limits for bringing a lawsuit
had run out on the family.

That decision
was affirmed reluctantly by an appeals court. In issuing that panel's decision,
Judge Laurence Rubin expressed regret but said he and the other judges could
not ignore the laws that spell out the time limits.

"If the alleged
facts are true, they call out for redress on the merits.... We nevertheless are
constrained by law to uphold the trial court’s decision to dismiss this case
because of the statute of limitations," Rubin wrote.

"The
family is disappointed that the court didn't give us a full shot," John
Taylor, the Rasmussens' attorney, said in an interview.

"The LAPD
assured the Rasmussens that there would be a full investigation in the
handling of the case. They were told, 'You shouldn't have had to wait this
long.' But to our knowledge absolutely nothing has been done to fulfill this promise."